Life is short, we often hear. How short, we don’t know. In the Netherlands, if you are battling with an acute mental health issue, you may choose euthanasia and be certain of the way and the time you depart.
But for us mere mortals, the mystery remains. And whilst we are here, life and breath are cause for stargazing in your life story. A moment in time can be life changing. Just have a look at the poignant image poet Laura Gilpin creates with a few sentences:
THE TWO-HEADED CALF.
“Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
But tonight, he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there as twice as many stars as usual.”
CELEBRATE YOUR JOURNEY TO PEACE
You are unique, different from anyone else in appearance, biology, experiences and, most of all, your perspective on the world around you.
Endings and Beginnings: A Story of Healing by Redi Thlabi: “Redi grew up in the ’80s in Orlando, Soweto, with thoughts and emotions so intense they nearly swallowed up her childhood.”
Soweto had two major problems at that time – apartheid and endemic, normalized crime. Thlabi says it wasn’t strange or unusual to “refer to so-and-so as ‘the rapist’ or so-and-so as ‘the killer’.” Her father, who was her hero, was murdered there. When they discovered his body on the street, one eye was removed. She takes a painful journey back the events of her childhood and eventually finds peace.
REVEL IN THE MANY WAYS IN WHICH WORDS CAN SING
The poem “Turning” by Victoria Chang
My mother is dead.
The lemons still turn yellow,
the trout still stare emptily,
desire is still free.
We still love many people,
eat peaches as if kissing.
CELEBRATE WHAT IS CLOSEST TO YOUR HEART
Family history, nature, and building a house. That is, in short, what Annie Proulx explores in her memoir Bird Cloud.
“Bird Cloud” is the name she gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands and prairie and four-hundred-foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River.” Proulx fell in love with the land. It was, at that time, the property of the Nature Conservancy. She wanted to build a house there. Proulx envisaged a house in sync with her work and her character. She wanted a “library surrounded by bedrooms and a kitchen.”
“Bird Cloud is the story of designing and constructing that house… It is also an enthralling natural history and archaeology of the region—inhabited for millennia by Ute, Arapaho, and Shoshone Indians—and a family history, going back to nineteenth-century Mississippi riverboat captains and Canadian settlers.”
The memoir is an intimate exploration of Proulx’ observations and compassion with the wilderness and herself. The reader understands how and why she came to be living in this house that she built from a dream. She remains one of my favourite authors.
CELEBRATE YOUR VICTORIES
Countless biographies and autobiographies celebrate the victories, big and small, that people experience. These books serve as a living legacy to us as readers and for those yet to come.
The magazine GQ, for example, lists the twenty best sports books to read. The list includes books about Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, Alex Ferguson, Jon Krakauer, and the iconic Bruce Lee with Be Water, My Friend.
STARGAZING IN YOUR LIFE STORY
Some of us move like water. Some of us have moments where we stare into space like the two-headed calf, and experience something magical. Some of us go on road trips and some build a dream house. Whether you are a mover, a builder, a traveler or had an extraordinary moment that changed your life – take the time to write your life story and make a difference, both for yourself and the world! As an author coach, I am here to assist you.